A variety of medicine cabinets have been designed in attempts to maximize the utility of the cabinets. However, many cabinets still exist that have insufficient or inconvenient storage space. Many of the present cabinets even being sold today have only three shelves for storing toilet articles.
In most cases, these shelves are made out of glass or plastic and have only marginal utility. They also may be adjustable to accommodate large articles. However often the adjustment of the shelves reduces the utilitarian aspects of the medicine cabinet. Adjusting for example the center shelf down, will usually leave a shelf that will only accommodate very small articles. If not many such articles are available, then considerable space is wasted.
In order to increase the utility of medicine cabinets various designs for medicine cabinets and utility cabinets have been proposed. Once such newly designed cabinet is shown in Aisley U.S. Pat. No. 5,139,322. This cabinet is constructed predominately of molded plastic components. The medicine cabinet is a preformed housing having an open front side. Upright central brackets support a plurality of adjustable half width and full width shelves. While this cabinet does propose some improvements that would be helpful, it requires completely replacing existing medicine cabinets.
Hearst U.S. Pat. No. 2,450,337 issued Sep. 28, 1948 discloses an auxiliary utility cabinet for installation in existing medicine cabinets. The small auxiliary cabinet is installed in the wall of the cabinet and clamped in position on one side of a shelf of the cabinet. This auxiliary utility cabinet is a rather small cabinet that provides drawers for storage of small articles such as pills and other small articles.
Another patent that discloses an auxiliary cabinet is Gehrs U.S. Pat. No. 3,008,785, issued Nov. 14, 1961. This patent provides an auxiliary safety medicine cabinet for installation in an existing medicine cabinet. The cabinet is provided with a lock that is sufficiently complicated to prevent a child from accessing toxic medicines. This medicine cabinet is constructed to replace only one of the shelves in existing medicine cabinets.
Other cabinets which disclose various devices for improving storage space in medicine cabinets and the like are shown in Nairn U.S. Pat. No. 3,140,134 issued Jul. 7, 1964; Goldfarb U.S. Pat. No. 3,298,764 issued Jan. 17, 1967; Coker, Jr. U.S. Pat. No. 3,521,936 issued Jul. 28, 1970; and Britt et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,792 issued Mar. 16, 1982. Each of these devices show various structures that attempt to improve the storage space in medicine cabinets. They either have special shelves that install in the cabinet or small compartments that attempt to provide storage space for small articles. It would be advantageous if some device could be provided to completely replace all the shelves of a medicine cabinet that could provide substantial versatility in the storage of articles in the cabinet.
It is therefore, one object of the present invention to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that fits into standard size medicine cabinets and creates a more efficient use of the space available.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that provides more usable storage in existing medicine cabinets and yet is inexpensive to produce.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that utilizes storage space in a medicine cabinet that is simple and easy to install.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that is adjustable to fit various size medicine cabinets.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that is constructed of a material that is easy to clean.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that divides the cabinet into unequal storage spaces with one side having a plurality of adjustable shelves.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert having a rectangular frame with at least one side wall, an upper and lower shelf, and a vertical divider integrally formed.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that has a height which allows the top of the organizing insert to be used as an upper shelf.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that includes at least two specially designed adjustable shelves to accommodate special toilet articles, such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors and the like.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a medicine cabinet organizing insert that has an open side designed to fit most standard medicine cabinets with at least three fixed shelves.